Tag: Lisa Madigan
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Red-Light Camera Co.’s Chicago Corruption
The chairman of the Australian company behind Chicago’s red-light program resigned this week and trading in the company’s stock was suspended amid an intensifying investigation into allegations of corruption in its Chicago contract. Redflex Holdings Ltd. announced the extraordinary actions just days after board members were briefed by an outside legal team hired to examine…
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Illinois Credit — Worst in the Nation
Illinois fell to the bottom of all 50 states in the rankings of a major credit ratings agency Friday following the failure of Gov. Pat Quinn and lawmakers to fix the state’s hemorrhaging pension system during this month’s lame-duck session. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service downgraded Illinois in what is the latest fallout over the…
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Mike Madigan: Speaker King
Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan has many advantages as he tries to extend his nearly uninterrupted three-decade control of the Illinois House. His Democrats have more campaign money. His party has home-state President Barack Obama to drive the vote. Perhaps most important, Madigan drew the district boundaries for each of the 118 House contests that will…
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$2M in Unemployment to Inmates
More than 1,100 people have collected nearly $2 million in unemployment benefits while they were in county jails or state prisons, including $43,000 that went to a person in the Cook County Jail, a state agency said Tuesday. Now they may face state or federal criminal fraud charges as well as having to repay what…
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Emanuel Plans Changes to City’s Gun Law
A few days ago… Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to rewrite Chicago’s firearm ordinance in response to a ruling by a federal judge who struck down a section of the city’s law he called vague and unconstitutional. … Last week, U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan called that regulation “indiscriminate and arbitrary.””There is something incongruent about a…
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Chicago’s Suburbs Corrupt Too
A former Chicago alderman is pushing for the creation of a suburban inspector general’s office to thwart corruption in the 1,200-plus government agencies spread throughout the suburban landscape. In a report released Monday, Dick Simpson, a former alderman and current head of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s political science department, cited more than 100…
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FYI, You CAN Cheat on Your Property Taxes
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor Joe Berrios on Tuesday urged state lawmakers to give them more power to go after property owners who improperly claim tax breaks, saying they could recover more than $150 million in three years with the new authority. Under legislation pending in Springfield, counties could go after back…
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Clout Boosts Ex-Police Chief $30k per Year
The Machine taking care of its own: At first blush, a pension bill adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 seemed to have a laudable goal: extending retirement benefits to local police force employees’ widows after they remarried. But buried within the legislation was something considerably less altruistic: a provision that enabled a member of…
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Derrick Smith Must Resign or Be Expelled — Dems Own It
The Democratic party was silent prior to the election of State Rep Derrick Smith on the issue of his resigning or getting off the ticket for allegedly accepting a $7000 cash bribe from an undercover FBI agent posing as a daycare center owner in exchange for a $50000 grant. The silence of the Democrats is…
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Beavers Indictment: Where’s Madigan?
So I understand that our unwanted and tried to be run out of town U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois has indicted Old Man Beavers. The feds are usually pretty good about putting their case together and have a 85-90% conviction rate. So it’s safe to say that the Hog of Cook County is going to…